stealth ICBMs

do they exist . . ? ? ?
Im sure thay dooo . . (we just dont know them yet)
at least stealth cruise missiles exist . . TSSAM, JAssaM ? ? ?
any info on stealth ICBMS . . . . . plz put forward

It's pretty hard to stealth an ICBM. The heat of reentry is going to make it stand out on IR brighter than the sun.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
It's pretty hard to stealth an ICBM. The heat of reentry is going to make it stand out on IR brighter than the sun.

yes to be stealthed an ICBM would have to not go out of the earth atnosphere or have some kind of device to "pull" the heat from re-entry back into itself or convert it into another form of energy.

Also, the reentry vehicle has to be shaped to correctly. Not being an expert on the design and construction of reentry vehicles one would have to assume that it would be difficult to design such a vehicle considering the speed involved combined with the fact that what RAM would withstand re-entry heat?

And as noted above, the IR bloom off of the sucker would be fierce. The exo-atmospheric kill vehicle employed on the US ABM system uses IR quidence to track the warhead not radar.

i assume you could make the warheads out of ram to make them harder to see once in atmosphere and therefore harder to shoot down . but im not sure if they can be shot down and im not sure if the ram could absord the heat.

justin

even if the RCS were 0 . . the heat sign would still get you . . . .
does that mean . .then . . . that the ICBMs are vulnerable to counter measures . . ? ? ? ?

What countermeasures? All this means is that a simple IR camera will track an ICBM on reentry. There are no countermeasures that will deflect something hot. You would have to have an IR camera on the ICBM, tracking the target, and steering it to be able to use countermeasures on it.

Heat from launch plume is also very detectible, if you have early warning satillites that are functioning.

Posts about plasma stealth abound on this website, I know of no thermal or I.R. re-entry detection devices in use but plenty of radars; objects going through re-entry are obsevable by such means even if engulfed in super hot plasmas.

no i meant counter measure to shoot down the ICBMs warhead . . .

" . . . . The exo-atmospheric kill vehicle employed on the US ABM system uses IR quidence to track the warhead not radar. . . . . "

Yes, but the problem is STILL going to be hitting it OUTSIDE the atmosphere. It's still pretty hot when it's in space, but after it reenters you have problems like debris falling onto your territory, which you don't want to happen. So you still have to have a missile or countermeasure capable of hitting it while it's still in the orbital stage.

soo . . what youre saying is that . . once it re-enters . . there is no way of stopping it . . . ( how cool) . . .

Srsairbags,

>>
Do they exist . . ? ? ?
I'm sure they do . . (we just dont know them yet)
At least stealth cruise missiles exist . . TSSAM, JAssaM ? ? ?
Any info on stealth ICBMS . . . . . plz put forward
>>

Stealthing an ICBM is relatively simple once it clears atmosphere. Both the (inner) bus and the MIRVs can be shaped and coated with RAM and there is next to no aerodynamic penalty involved as either ablative thermal or drag related. This is why DSP (which can supposedly only see plume) will be followed on by a similar GSO or HEO constellation which can cold-track against the earth background.

One thing you also need to remember is that if the missile is truly an ICBM, it may well be moving at 6km/sec or more and thus the difference in a few hundred pounds (payload throw weight) for a BUNCH of decoys atop a 150-200,000lb motor stack is minimal. While the number of opportunities to kill it 'on the way down' (when those decoys burn up) is equally low.

Under this posit, you can actually go the other way and effectively say "We don't care how many people see us a-comin'!!". Because you have a spread of 1-2 warheads in a cloud of 20+ decoys and can even engage in shell game switcheroos whereby (for instance) putting the MIRVs inside blow-up-doll SHINY balloons makes any intercept attempt have to choose. Which is the decoy? Which is the warhead? Which balloon has a warhead in it? As part of it's sort-reject process.

Some forms of neutral partical beam can 'X-Ray' measure for radiometric mass and even the presence of radioactive materials inside decoys. I wouldn't be surprised if IR spectral analysis couldn't do something similar for materials. But then you can simply put a DU weight inside a dummy MIRV shell (important if you have a rate-limited ability to generate large warhead stockpiles).

What it comes down to is this:

The more you make the enemy try to defeat your defenses, the more /damage/ is likely to occur, either as a function of multi-head saturation of targets beyond those originally intended to 'send a message'. Or by dropping the return-to-sender address altogether to use short range systems. Either as an unregistered missile off a boat. Or by walking a plague/radiologic/chem threat in etc. etc.

The only real exception to this clause is when a bunch of 'Die for Allah!' or 'Death to the Yankee Imperialist Running Dogs!' /madmen and morons/ decide to go completely over the edge and start somethin' up which they KNOW they can't finish.

In this instance, you can have either allied/collateral hostaging (in theater) which constricts your strategic policies by virtue of threatening something which you hold dear but not dear enough to defend directly.

Or some kind of murder:suicide pact threat in which X think that if they start a ball rolling, maybe creeping attrition will still ruin Y's (U.S.) economy. Something particularly likely to happen if you're invading their dirt and they have nothing (politically) left to razed-earth lose.

Fortunately, these gits are not quite the technical masters they are often portrayed to be and so a limited defence can sometimes be enough to backstop our major cities against their limited missile force rather than suffer desultory attrition of 1-2 (20 million per pop) mazcats in trade for steamrolling their behinds.

Unfortunately, atomic munitions have just a long enough half life to allow for several generational improvements to be made to delivery system accuracy and penetrativity while expanding the total force. All of which means the one missile you face today may morph into 100-200 tomorrow.

Which puts a really big strain on the beneficence if not moral restraint of nations like the United States when it comes to being tempted to turn off the lights _early_ on mouse-roar city states like Korea.

The real tragedy being that when/if these crackpot dictatorships go under for 'natural causes' there will STILL be an incredible mess of sloppy atomic engineering which we will most likely have to pay for the cleanup of. Just as we did in Russia.


KPl.

ok . . fine . . now if you had to choose betn an ICBM and a stealth cruise missile . . what would you choose and whyy . . . ? ? ?

Originally posted by srsairbags
ok . . fine . . now if you had to choose betn an ICBM and a stealth cruise missile . . what would you choose and whyy . . . ? ? ?

Cruise missile doesn't have the range and speed of the ICBM, does it?


To above poster: yes, older Russian ICBMs in particular carried tons and tons of "heavy" decoys ans supposedly electronic countermeasures (probably a bunch of jammers dispersed with the decoys). Nasty stuff.

Originally posted by Aelita
[
Cruise missile doesn't have the range and speed of the ICBM, does it?


To above poster: yes, older Russian ICBMs in particular carried tons and tons of "heavy" decoys ans supposedly electronic countermeasures (probably a bunch of jammers dispersed with the decoys). Nasty stuff.

Yea but great for decapitation strieks and they have no EW.

ok . . lets compare . . . if US were to strike china (or vice-versa) using an ICBM and a cruise msslie . . .
what would be the approximate flight time of the two missiles
also what would be the reaction time given to the target in both cases . . ? ? ?

does supersonic cruise make much of a difference . . ? ? ?

Again it would depend. A cruise missile would have to be launched within a couple hundred miles of the coast, so you're looking at around 45 minutes to an hour. An ICBM could be launched from anywhere, and you're looking at probably 40-45 minutes depending on where you launch from and where your target is. A cruise missile is much shorter ranged, and can be sub or supersonic. A supersonic cruise missile gives less time to react, and is harder to hit.

Originally posted by Aelita

Originally posted by srsairbags
ok . . fine . . now if you had to choose betn an ICBM and a stealth cruise missile . . what would you choose and whyy . . . ? ? ?

Cruise missile doesn't have the range and speed of the ICBM, does it?

noadays range is a no proablemo (youve got universal strike capable cruise missiles- ). . . but speed . . i dunno . . . that depends on the missile . . . . and the distance involved

[edit on 28-6-2006 by srsairbags]

Universal strike capable cruise missiles? There are no cruise missiles capable of super long range strikes. The primary US missile is the Tomahawk, which has a range of about between 700 nautical miles, and 1350 nautical miles depending on the version.

by universal range i ment range of over and above 3000kms . . . russia and china both have em . . . . russian Kh-55SM (NATO 'Kent-B', Kh-55OK/izdeliye 121, RKV-500B . . . are having a range of upto 3000 kms